Connecting to Optusnet DSL from Linux

Optus provides no support for Linux users attempting to set up a DSL connection, so the following outlines what I did to set it up. No special software is required. Optus does not use PPPoE, and there is no need for dhcpd, dhcpcd or dhclient to be installed.

Different versions of Linux have graphical tools to assist setup. Also, the process of installing Linux provides opportunity for some defaults to be set. The net effect is that certain system files are created which need to be set as follows. They can be edited as super-user.

/etc/hosts.conf 

order hosts,bind

/etc/hosts 

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1		localhost.localdomain localhost

/etc/resolv.conf

empty

/etc/sysconfig/network 

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=localhost

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes

Connection to Linux must be by an Ethernet connection. It cannot use the USB port at present. I have assumed above that if you have more than one network card, that eth0 will be the one to connect to the Optus modem. If you find that you need to swap cables between network cards, you must also remove power from the modem so that it will look afresh at the network card to determine its hardware address. If this is not done, the modem will not recognize anything from the new card as intended for it.

You can verify that the port is up and running with

   /sbin/ifconfig -a
which should show something like 

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:10:5A:1A:B9:C5  
          inet addr:10.1.1.2  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::210:5aff:fe1a:b9c5/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:524 dropped:0 overruns:525 carrier:525
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x1040 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:4298 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4298 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:5421208 (5.1 Mb)  TX bytes:5421208 (5.1 Mb)

If it is not UP, then as superuser you can issue the command

   /sbin/ifup eth0
or you can reboot.

Browser configuration

Ensure that your browser has its proxy settings as "Direct to the internet". In Mozilla, this is in Edit / Preferences / Advanced / Proxies.

Connection to the modem

It should now be possible in a browser to type the address of the modem 

   http://10.1.1.1
and you should see the page from the modem indicating an IP address that is currently allocated to you. There will be a prompt to set the password. This needs to be the one that Optus has allocated to you.

Setting this password will cause the lights on the modem to flash for about a minute, and then the browser will freeze up. If you check with ifconfig, it will appear that the connection is up, but in fact communication with the modem has broken. You cannot ping the modem. Issuing the commands (as superuser) 

   /sbin/ifdown eth0
and then 
   /sbin/ifup eth0
should restore communications.

You should then be able to use the browser to connect to http://dsl.optusnet.com.au

Tidy up

You will want to change your password, but you must remember to change the password in the modem when you have finished, and remember that doing so will cause the modem to reboot itself and you will lose connection to it, as occurred during set-up.

For mail delivery, you will need to point your mail program at the mail server, mail.optusnet.com.au, selecting POP3 for receiving. The same machine is suitable for mail sending (SMTP).

Graham Freeman
1 September 2004